Shooting Stars

by Lebron James

  Back and forth. Back and forth. Up and down. Up and down. St. V 27-23. St. V 27-24. Less than 2 minutes left in the first half. Long 3-pointer by Hausfeld. A tie, 27-27.

  Fourth tie of the game.

  Pick and roll from me to Romeo underneath, off Bacon turnover. St. V 29-27.

  Bacon’s Phillips moves to the hoop with a left-hander: 29-29.

  Fifth tie of game.

  Mraz fouled going into the lane. Makes one of two. St. V 30-29.

  Bacon turnover with 50 seconds left. Mraz takes a 3-pointer. Misses.

  Bacon’s Leonard Bush inside with 21 seconds left. Good.

  Ninth lead change.

  Now I truly am getting jittery:

  It just seems like everything is going wrong. Like the wheels are just falling off. Things are happening that never happened before. People are trying to do it by themselves. The referees are calling things that don’t seem right. Like everyone has it out for us. It’s our fault but we are blaming everyone else. I know that.

  Second period ends.

  Roger Bacon 31

  St. V 30

  DURING HALFTIME, there is a creeping sense of disbelief in the locker room. We are only down by 1, but Roger Bacon is playing with relentlessness and confidence. We silently begin to ask ourselves the same question: Why are we where we are? But I’m beginning to loosen up a little bit now. Going into the second half, Coach Dru is just going to play me in the post; he says, “Hey, they can’t stop you in the post.”

  THIRD PERIOD BEGINS.I go through the lane off a feed from Little Dru. St. V 32-31. Tenth lead change.

  Bacon’s Wyrick returns with a dunk off a lob pass. Bacon 33-32. Eleventh lead change.

  Coach Dru squatting in front of the bench, more unsmiling than ever, motioning the team on. Turnovers traded. Romeo off my feed. St. V 34-33.

  Twelfth lead change.

  Hausfeld drives to the basket. Bacon 35-34.

  Thirteenth lead change.

  Romeo puts in a rebound of his own shot, battling off the glass. St. V 36-35. Plus he is fouled. Good. St. V 37-35.

  Fourteenth lead change.

  Sian decides it’s all about destiny:We still feel that we are going to win. We have been in situations like this before. We always feel that we are going to pull it out at the end.

  Three-pointer by Hausfeld from the left side. Good. Bacon 38-37.

  Fifteenth lead change.

  Then Bacon on a run. 40-37. 42-37. 44-37. 46-37. 48-37.

  I spin into the lane. Gap closed to 48-39.

  Another basket off a lob from Little Dru. Bacon 48-41.

  Foul shot by Bacon’s Phillips. Bacon 49-41.

  I answer back with another basket off a feed from Romeo. Bacon 49-43.

  Wyrick returns with a baseline jumper with 8 seconds left. Bacon 51-43.

  In desperation, I take a running 3-pointer ten feet inside the half-court line. Bank it in as the buzzer sounds.

  Third period ends.

  Roger Bacon 51

  St. V 46

  FOURTH PERIOD BEGINS.

  Bacon scores on two quick layups. Their lead climbs back up to 9 points. Bacon 55-46. Sian flip-flops back to a sinking feeling:It’s almost like a nightmare. You can almost feel people looking at you like, How can you let it slip away? You’re supposed to win four straight state championships.

  Coach Dru can feel that pressure building on us, the attitude that we are supposed to win. He feels the weight of those expectations crashing down on us as seventeen-year-olds. He can literally see it.

  I score in traffic on a short bank off the glass. Bacon 55-48.

  Bacon’s Hausfeld answers with his eighteenth and nineteenth point on a ten-footer. Bacon 57-48. Sian is aware of the implications:We are trying to get things on the right road, but they keep making play after play. And then the crowd turns on us, starts cheering for them, and that makes things even more difficult.

  But Romeo answers with his eighteenth and nineteenth point off an offensive rebound, twisting and turning with a strong move inside. And is fouled. Bacon 57-50.

  Misses, but teammate Sekou Lewis makes a putback. Bacon 57-52.

  Romeo rebounds at the other end. Feeds to Little Dru. Little Dru back to Romeo. Romeo to Mraz. Mraz lobs a pass to me. In close off the glass. Bacon 57-54.

  4:40 left.

  Romeo is open underneath. I lead him by a hair too much, and the ball skips off his fingers. Out of bounds. Still Bacon 57-54.

  Romeo is called for his fourth foul for a reacharound on St. Clair. Makes both ends of a one-and-one. 59-54 Bacon. Romeo knows that one more foul, and he is out of the game. Now he is worried like the rest of us:LeBron’s back is ailing him. I’m in foul trouble. Little Dru isn’t making his shots. It’s just like everything is happening wrong to us at the right time for Roger Bacon. We play them ten times, we beat them in nine.

  3:50 left.

  I steal. Dunk. Close the gap to 59-56 Bacon. It isn’t over yet.

  Bacon upcourt. Romeo blocks from behind on Wyrick. Called for his fifth foul. Out of the game with 2:45 left. Marches to the bench emotional and upset, clenching his uniform shirt in his teeth, his head angled upward searching for explanation. Little Dru can feel the tension mounting ever higher:It definitely hurts when Romeo fouls out of the game. He is playing well. He is in double digits and Roger Bacon has a lot of size and we need him out there. He is in foul trouble for most of the game. Instead of moving on and collecting ourselves and being calm about it, we are still complaining about the refs as much as he is.

  Wyrick makes one of two free throws. 60-56 Bacon.

  I weave in traffic to the basket. Off the glass. 60-58 Bacon.

  2:12 left.

  I dish off to Mraz for a 3-pointer. He misses. Ball back to Bacon. Still 60-58 Bacon.

  Sian quickly fouls. St. Clair at the line. Makes first. Misses second. 61-58 Bacon.

  1:54 left.

  Wyrick slaps it back, so Bacon retains possession. Another quick foul by Sian.

  Hausfeld makes first. 62-58 Bacon. Makes second. 63-58.

  I go baseline and finish off with a dunk. 63-60 Bacon.

  Under a minute left.

  Wyrick can’t finish on a layup for Bacon. Ball back to St. V.

  Little Dru turns it over. He goes for a layup and has the ball flicked out of his hands from behind.

  Ball to Phillips. Kisses it off the glass. 65-60 Bacon.

  Forty seconds left.

  I answer with a 3-point play to give me 32 points for the game. 65-63 Bacon.

  Thirty seconds left.

  Bacon’s Johnson fouled by Little Dru. Misses first. Makes second. 66-63 Bacon.

  Twenty-two-point-five seconds left.

  Ball inbounded by St. V.

  Less than 17 seconds left.

  Coach Dru calls time-out. He knows that I’m going to be taken out of the flow by Roger Bacon’s defense to prevent me from getting off a good shot. He draws up a play that has Little Dru taking it, and Chad Mraz, typical of their rivalry, is incredulous. “LeBron has brought us all the way back, and you’re going to give Little Dru the final shot?” Coach Dru knows his son, convinced it is a comment that Little Dru cannot let go of as he heads back out on the floor.

  I dish it off to Mraz. He has hit big shots before, including a crucial 3-pointer as a sophomore to help beat Villa Angela-St. Joseph in the regional championship. He takes the shot here. Open from the left wing for a 3. He misses. Still 66-63 Bacon. But there still is a glimmer.

  Hausfeld gets rebound and is fouled from behind. Play is stopped.

  Little Dru suddenly takes the ball and hurls it at the rim in frustration. Technical is called on Little Dru. I go up to him and shake him and point to the scoreboard and say, “What are you doing? There’s still time left.” Little Dru knows exactly what he has just done:There is no need to do that right there. It is a blow to our team that really kills us at that moment. They have a chance to seal the deal, but with me making that play, I seal the deal
for us.

  Unless Roger Bacon misses.

  Hausfeld goes to the line. Makes first. Misses second. 67-63 Bacon.

  Now the two-shot technical. Makes first. 68-63 Bacon. Makes second. 69-63.

  Eight-point-nine seconds left.

  And Bacon retains possession because of the technical.

  WE ARE NOW HELPLESS. And we are about to accomplish something that seemed unimaginable before the game, no matter how strong the karma. We are about to lose the state championship.

  III.

  Willie cried after the game. He cried out of embarrassment because he had only gotten in for several minutes and had not helped the team like he felt he should have. He also cried because the goal of winning four state championships in a row had now been shattered. Little Dru covered his eyes with a headband so no one could see his tears. He had not played well, shooting only 2 for 5, and he felt humiliated. He knew that as our General, he had sent us terribly off course with that technical when we were still only down by 3. His fire and brimstone, usually so effective, had gotten the better of him at a pivotal moment. He wasn’t pleased with the shot that had been taken right before he hurled the ball at the rim, and he let it show. Romeo had started crying even before the final buzzer, so frustrated by fouling out. When the Roger Bacon team raised the gleaming championship trophy in joyous victory on the parquet floor of the Value City Arena, rising ten stories high, Romeo reverted back to the old ways that he had tried to correct somewhat. He wanted to fight. He wanted to punch somebody. Then he realized there was nothing he could do about it. It was out of St. V’s hands now. Roger Bacon had won through balance and outrebounding and greater team discipline. Four of its players were in double digits. The rebounding difference was 32 to 18. Of the 63 points we had scored, Romeo and I had accounted for 51.

  Little Dru tried to walk immediately into the locker room, but his father ran and brought him back out into the arena to be gracious in defeat. But he was inconsolable. Sian had his arms around Little Dru, rocking him back and forth, cradling him and trying to calm him down like a gentle father to a son. “Just be strong and don’t worry, you know we’ll be back,” he told Little Dru “And when we come back, we’ll be stronger than ever.”

  Sian refused to wear the silver medallion given out for finishing second. On the inside he was stoic, because he knew what had gone down and why it had gone down; we deserved to lose, not only because of how we’d played against Roger Bacon but because of how we’d treated the entire season. We had fooled around too much. We had clashed with Coach Dru too much. We had ignored his dire predictions that our actions on and off the court would ultimately be fatal.

  We were still also teenage kids, with no idea how to handle our sudden fame. The media, Sports Illustrated first and foremost, had lit a bonfire under us, and then watched the inevitable immolation. The magazine had supposedly carefully considered the decision to put a high school junior on the cover, but I believe they must have known the explosion it would cause. No one in high school deserves to be compared to Michael Jordan, and no one in high school could be expected to withstand the pressure of such a comparison. We had become bigheaded jerks, I in particular, and we are to blame for that, but so are adults who treated us that way and then sat back and smugly watched the self-destruction.

  As Sian stood in the arena, he was struck by how happy so many fans were that we’d lost. He heard them chattering back and forth: “I told you so. I told you they weren’t that good.” As an assistant coach, his father, Lee, had obviously wanted to win the game, but mostly he had just wanted the year to come to an end. The emotion he felt the most was relief. The season of agony was finally over.

  In the locker room there was almost complete silence, except for the sound of Romeo flushing his silver medallion down the toilet. When Coach Dru spoke, his main concern was getting the players to understand that all was not lost. Little Dru had taken it hard. Romeo had taken it hard. Willie had taken it hard. More than just losing, Coach Dru was concerned about our mental well-being. But he went home and didn’t sleep that night, poring over and over in his mind what he could have done differently. The game had been called tightly by the refs, too tightly, as far as he was concerned. That was part of the game of basketball, however, and you learned to adapt to it. Here the calls had so clearly upset us as players, crawled into our heads. In the huddle during breaks, instead of talking about the way we were playing and what we needed to do, we had constantly complained about the refereeing. As he relived the game, Coach Dru, being the kind of man he was, once again assumed full responsibility for not taking control on the sidelines to reel us back in. He refused to place the blame on anyone else, when the truth was, we deserved the vast bulk of it.

  As dignified as he was in defeat, the loss in the state championship was his worst scenario, what had haunted him from the beginning when he mulled over whether to take the head coaching job in the first place: If I win, it’s because I had Keith Dambrot’s kids. If I lose, it’s my fault. He had to contend with Little Dru’s technical at the end; given the intensity of their relationship, that wasn’t so easy either. Then came a column in the Akron Beacon Journal stating the very thing he had feared people would conclude about why St. V had not won its third straight state championship: “The biggest difference between this year’s St. V-M team and the past two is the leader—Dru Joyce.” He read the column at the kitchen counter early in the morning. Little Dru read it next, then Carolyn. Coach Dru’s first impulse was to send an angry letter. The point of it would be not simply to defend himself, but to ask the writer how he could say such things after all that Coach Dru had done for kids in basketball over the years. But Little Dru said to his father: “Dad, don’t worry about it. We’re going to show them next season.” There are times when words of clarity come from unexpected places, and this was one of those times; his son’s comment pulled Coach Dru back to reality, rather than let him go off on a tangent that would lead nowhere. Carolyn Joyce chimed in:

  “Dru’s right. Let’s just show people who you guys really are.” Coach Dru dropped the idea of the letter, because he knew his son and his wife were right.

  He also played over in his mind a quote from Roger Bacon’s coach, Bill Brewer, who said, “We knew they had the best player—we thought we had the best team.” Just as he had overcome the column, he resolved in his mind that no one, no one, would ever say that again about a squad he coached.

  As for me, I felt remarkably calm in defeat, the karma of the morning being all I needed to know that it had ended up the way I was afraid it would. I was comfortable with what I had done in the final moments on the court because that’s what I had done the whole year and would continue to do throughout my career—look for the open man—and Mraz was open, and he was a good 3-point shooter. If Little Dru was upset, so be it. I shed no tears, blamed no one except all of us. I went down the row of Roger Bacon players, shook each of their hands because they had earned their victory. Something else happened then and there: I knew that things would have to change, everything would have to change senior year, if the Fab Four Plus One was ever going to achieve the dream of winning a national championship. Because there was a harsh truth:

  Time was running out.

  12.

  In or Out?

  I.

  One of the first orders of business was Romeo. His temperament had improved over the two years he had been at St. V. He had learned the need for outside opinions. As hard as it was, he had learned to be slightly more open, because we as the Fab Four expected that. But still, too often, he acted against the world, against everything. We didn’t like it. We didn’t like the idea of the Fab Four Plus One. We wanted Romeo to be with us. But he didn’t make it easy. His ability to offend was still there. So were his trust issues.

  With only one year left, we had to do something. We couldn’t go on like this with Willie and Little Dru and Sian and me inside and Romeo outside. We had now known Romeo since we were sophomores. We knew
that he liked to be with us, just as we liked to be with him. We also knew that he still liked to play the role of the tough guy who didn’t need to rely on anyone else, with his frequent rejoinders of “I don’t care” or “fuck you.” We knew that he still liked being a contrarian, the kind of person who, if a dinner was planned for 7:00 p.m., would immediately insist that he wasn’t going until 8:00 p.m. It wasn’t good for our heads. It wasn’t good for his head. And it wasn’t good for our team. Romeo himself realized he had to do something. That tough guy act, the “screw you I don’t need anybody” attitude, was no longer working for him, wearing thin. There wasn’t any payoff in the badass image he had cultivated, and he wanted to connect with the Fab Four. “I felt he was crying out for something,” said his sister De Shawnda. We drew such sustenance from one another, and Romeo wanted that same sustenance but could not seem to get there. Much of it, perhaps, had come from changing schools. He had lost many friends, a percentage of them who still felt he was a pimp for going to a Catholic school that was over 85 percent white. The feelings of alienation also traced back to the abandonment of the past. “It caused him to get angry and develop a resistance toward people because he had gotten hurt,” said De Shawnda, who was four years older. “He became a tough guy even though he had never gotten into a real fight in his life. He overcame pain by being negative.” But Romeo finally saw that it wasn’t worth it to have people dislike him and look at him and say to themselves, He’s an asshole. He was living with his grandmother, and much like Little Dru, she saw behind the curtain. She saw a Romeo who could be incredibly kind when he felt like it, willing to give the shirt off his back to someone who was in need.

  We took an informal vote in the school cafeteria on whether or not to embrace Romeo, expand the Fab Four, and literally rename it so that everybody would know we were the Fab Five. We agreed, as Little Dru had once put it, that Romeo was blowing smoke most of the time, and that the best way to handle it was by calling his bluff. We knew that he was always going to have moments of wig-out, and that you just had to accept it and move on. But underneath was a Romeo who had matured.